THE TOFU HUT

Monday, July 12, 2004

Welcome to all you newcomers and welcome back to all my regulars! I'm excited to announce that we're starting another mix CD series here at the Tofu Hut. Let me explain how we do this:

For the past several months, I've been sending out a mix CD collection with an arbitrary and offbeat theme (previous mixes include "songs by children", "songs with the word "f*ck" in the title", "songs that start with the letter B by artists whose names start with the letter B" and "embarrassing music to listen to at the gym"). These CD's are sent to Tofu Hut listeners who are granted a scant few days to listen to the CD and then email me a track by track review of the mix. Then I post their reviews UNCUT, UNCENSORED and UNEDITED (but peppered with my own smartass comments and observations in italics) along with the tracks in question. It's like listening to a mix CD with a bunch of friends... only you don't have to have any friends... except me. And I'm already your friend! Yay!

Get it? Got it? Good!

This time our mix CD theme is:

EIGHT LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD -- SONGS ABOUT SPIDERS.

Let's meet our three guest reviewers.

First off is Mason. Mason was the tardy gent who kept our review party from starting earlier but he's already been chastised and has cleaned out the cobwebs:

what a mess of a reviewer i am. not only am i completely late in giving my track by track comments, i can't for the life of my find the tracklist and instructions. they're probably in the same theatre where i was able to play this disc before the spiderman 2 premeire. oh well, it's probably just as well that i don't know exactly what i'm listening to. kinda like juke box jury, but not british and with more legs. here we go.

Here we go indeed! Mason might be late but he wins brownie points for his remarkable corporate synergy; knowing that this mix got played at a showing of Spiderman2 (which I haven't seen yet, but would like to) gives me a kick. (Before you ask, the release of SM2 was NOT the impetus for this mix; just a happy coinkydink). Be aware while reading Mason's reviews that he doesn't have a tracklist handy; he occasionally gets a tetch confused.

Next, we have Brian who writes:

Sorry it took me so long. I started late and listened too much. I liked most of it. The review follows. I know it wasn't my mix, but how about Eno's "Spider and I" or The Who "Boris the Spider"? Both of those are quintessential spider songs, and I hardly ever (never) use the word quintessential. This makes three times. Thanks for letting me listen.

Believe it or not, the Who track was rejected as not spider-y enough and I'm not familiar with the Eno track, so those of you who were hoping for either of the above are S.O.L. Sorry. I imagine you'll like what's here tho'.

Mason: ooh, i remember this. electric company? i have it connected with some childhood memory of a not very good spiderman cartoon. 12 solid seconds of funk. probably better than the cartoon.

Wasn't even a cartoon, although I could certainly see how memory would fudge on the details. Actually, this was a live action bit. If you'd like to learn more, stop by The Electric Company Spidey Episode Guide.
Stuff like this is why I love the internet. Want information on an obscure pop culture reference? Don't worry; somebody's already done months of research for you.

Tuwa: Spider Man didn't hang out too long. Must have had a mugging to stop somewhere. I think this is the shortest song I've ever heard.

If you want more, you'll have to buy the extended single by Gary William Friedman from Amazon. I'm as shocked as you are that this is available. Much less as a single. Here's more info from spiderfan.org.This is ALMOST worth getting. I'd certainly accept it as a nice birthday gift (wink wink).
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RIP TEC MP3Note to self: Next time a great site with tons of obviously copyrighted material pops up to archive out of print stuff: download, download, download! I missed out on pretty much EVERYTHING this site had to offer before it got grounded and I'm still kicking myself.
I loved me some EZ Reader back in the day.
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The Spidey Mego Photo GuideWith Ultra Rare Electric Company Packaging! Say it with me: oooooOOOOOOooooo!

Mason: super loose blues. nothing feels in tune here. i think i love it. all this spider/blues stuff must have something to do with the black widow? we need less black cat bones, more spider webs!

Crudup is an easy sell to anyone just starting blues music; he wasn't known as "the Father of Rock and Roll" in the seventies for nothing. The music still sounds remarkably fresh and contemporary some fifty years later, arguably more so than the many who would go on to cover his tracks.

Buy "The Essential Arthur Crudup" from Document RecordsAs always with the Document catalog, just search for the title.
How about their new random autoloading site music feature? Neat, huh?
More obsessive types should look into Document's four volume COMPLETE Arthur Crudup reissue series, spanning fourteen years of grimy blues action.
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"One could reasonably argue that Crudup’s original 'That’s All Right', which rocks at least as hard as Presley’s follow-up take, is actually the first rock song."The hullaballoo over this recent Time magazine article has been considerable but the piece itself couldn't be much more wrongheaded.
Arguing that Elvis' cover of a blues track was the first rocknroll cut is nutty beyond nutty; no one with even a flirtation with the history of popular music believes this for a second and the Memphis celebration isn't even ABOUT that. The article is a sort of disingenuous posturing toward an obvious stance: that Elvis was greatly influenced by black artists.
Fuck man, I coulda told you that when I was ten; don't you listen to
Chuck, punk? It doesn't make Elvis' influence on the music any less important, but he ain't reinvented the wheel. Just smoothed it out a little, did right by it and sold it to the nice people.
Now Crudup? That guy put some spokes in the wheel.
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Some light bio

Tuwa: I love the old blues (I mean old, before people came up with happy blues, the auditory equivalent of vanilla chocolate), and this one is no exception. I feel like I'm in the bar and it's got a wood chip floor and no one will serve me a beer because I haven't been born yet.

Brian: How can someone so generative be so generic here? Not his greatest thing. So sue me.

Mason: more blues. it sounds "smokey" to me. makes me wish i liked the blues more.

Brian: Rules the den. Makes you ask what happened to the blues today, and not want to know the answer.

Mason: ack, more blues. i think i recognize this one, but i'm not gonna make a guess. this i like.

Tuwa: John Lee Hooker. A national treasure, along with Willie Nelson. Some knowledgeable inspired mp3blogger should have a National Treasures week. Yeah, he's good. The melody's a bit similar to "Crawling King Snake," but that's allowed. And hell, van Gogh on an off day is still worth a million dollars.

Yeah, this bears more than a passing resemblance to 'King Snake,' but as sequels go this is more _Godfather2_ than _Godfather3_.

Hooker evokes dirty jukejoints, cigarette haze and the beginnings of inebriation better than just about anyone.

I just finished mailing out the NEXT mix CD on Saturday, so you reviewers should be getting it in the next few days.

Time for ANOTHER Mix CD mailer. The next mix CD is entitled CRAYOLA CD ONE: BLUE TUNES.

If you want to be a guest reviewer, here's how we play (pay close attention; I'm introducing some new rules):

If you want a copy of the next mix CD for review, email me at the address listed at the top of this page with "CAN I HAVE A CD?" in the subject line and a friendly request in the actual mail. The first three requests I receive will get a response from me detailing the rules of review. Everybody else gets a nice pat on the head. As soon as I receive the first three requests, I will update this post to let you know that we're full up. If you miss out this time, keep reading the blog; there's likely to be a few offers over the next few weeks.
Please note that there is no charge whatsoever for this CD, _except_ you are going to be expected to write a track by track review... quickly. United States only please, unless you're willing to fedex me a check for shipping and handling in which case you're in. Sorry to be American elitist; I'd love to be able to go global but it's just too damn expensive. Again, if you wanna pay for it then I'm happy to include and indulge my beloved overseas readers as well.

UPDATE: I've got my three. Be on the lookout for the next post and thanks for looking in on me!
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33 RPM is sadly MIA. What gives?
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Lots of action here in the Hut as of late. If you look to the right of the vehicle, you'll see that we have a crop of n00b musicblogs; some of the s tandouts here include the musicblog My Mean Magpie, the Real World label page (watch out for that autoloading music!) and something I was astonished to find: Amazon is posting MP3s.

Stay tuned for a PILE of reggae links that I just discovered and am riffing through. Very exciting stuff!
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Longtime readers may recall that I have a strict rule about removing tracks after about a week. We're not a library or a repository or a reference source; if you want the music in the long run, you need to go buy it (preferably direct from the artist).

There are, however, a VERY FEW exceptions to this rule; cuts that I've left on to promote sites I like or in memoriam of an artist I respect.

Unfortunately, a very few of these tracks have caught the eye of somewhat more rapacious eyes than mine and are being exploited by pay services and other similarly trashy individuals. This saps my bandwidth and it also reminds me that it's probably wise not to leave ANYTHING up permanently. So they gotta come down, but I wanted to give you all ONE LAST CHANCE to listen to this handful of songs.

When this post falls off the front page, these songs are coming down.
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Lusitania is back in the game and HOW with a MASSIVE new post that's hella fun and not to be missed.
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I finally got Meta'd! Not quite an FPP, but close to it. I'd be lying if I didn't say that this didn't satisfy a desire deep in my bloggin' heart. So Matt, can I freakin' finally join ?
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Okay, here's the six million dollar question: I've been approached by an unnamed business that has offered to pay me to post links to their site on this page. I have SERIOUS issues with making money off of this site; I fear that would compromise my already tenuous ethical position in musicposting (hence no paypal buttons, etc) but if I were to assume that they were paying for the site's traffic ranking and hipster sheen (which they assure me they are) then I'm just getting paid for my writing which is fine. I'm conflicted. What do ya'll think: should I accept advertising?
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On another topic altogether: if anyone feels like lending out hosting space, I would be DEEPLY indebted. I can't imagine that I'm not gonna be a victim of accelerated popularity unless I can find a few new sites to broadcast from. Alms for the poor?
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I've been involved in a NUMBER of side projects lately; I'll tell you about them tomorrow. Time is getting tight for me these days; I'm working something like 45 hours a week waiting tables and another 20 or so a week bloggin' and scourin' the web for musicblog info. Updates of this size are somewhat less likely in the future. Again, I plead: HIRE ME! I wanna work in music media of some sort doing copy or editing or pr or somethin'! I got's mad energy! I got over a hundred thousand words worth of portfolio material right here in this blog! I'll even take out the garbage! C'mon!
HIRE ME!
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clicky: we toot our own horn

I just posted the following at Monkeyfilter somewhat in response to the Meta-link and am reposting it here.

Take a peek.

So from multipleprevious posts and from abouttown, most of you are probably aware that I am an musicblogger (AKA mp3 blogger AKA audioblogger). A musicblogger is a person who offers interesting, out of print, rare or otherwise engaging music to people at no charge, simply out of love for the sound and to promote artists that they would like to see get more popular. I'm not prejudiced; I also include record label sites, artist's personal sites, people who aggregate the daily adventures of other musicbloggers into digests... I like em all.

There are more musicbloggers out there than most people would believe; I've been keeping a close eye on the phenomena these past six months and have compiled what I think is the most comprehensive list of musicbloggers yet available. This resource is on my own page as a sidebar but it's not very user friendly and difficult to unearth and utilize unless you know what you're looking for (which would explain why I'm posting this here in my own blog as well)..

I figured it might be time to let loose a new (in)complete list on to the web. My hope is that (after all you monkeys take some time to explore), that this resource will be disseminated onto the web and get a few more people interested.

As of July 4th, all of the following sites were live and had tunes available to listen to.

Here's the grand collection, organized (somewhat) by genre. They are presented in no particular order of preference, barring my personal favorites.

WANNA SEND ME STUFF?WANNA TALK? HOLLABACK@

A BRIEF DISCLAIMER

All MP3's are offered for a limited time and are for sampling purposes only. Music posted here is posted out of love, not with the intention for profit or to violate copyright. If you are the creator (or copyright owner) of a song, excerpt, essay, graphic or photo posted on this blog, please contact me at the email above if you want to comment on the selection or wish to have it removed. Please don't direct link to a track; it's rude. Delete all tracks after 24 hours. Don't get them wet. Don't feed them after midnight. If you can't download it, it's gone. No refills. Come early, come often, come correct.

One Last Thing

Although every effort has been made to verify the authenticity of the information contained in this blog, google journalism has its limits. As such, it is completely possible that you may find errors, statistical slips or outright garbage lies mixed in a few of these articles.
The author shouts mea culpa but implores you to contact him if you discover a mistake so that he can rectify the situation.
Similarly, please be aware that although I have visited all the sites cited, I cannot vouch for the veracity of the material (much less the politics) of my linkage.
Click at your own peril.Surf with a grain of salt handy.